"If you have NO investment in any lenses or accessories, or bodies and had to start over from scratch, would you select Nikon or Canon, and explain what body you would buy and why."

Although some responders have tried to be fair and say that both systems have their plusses and minuses, the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY say that if they were to start from scratch THEY WOULD GO WITH NIKON AGAIN.

I asked the OP to post his question in the Canon forums and see what kind of responses he gets. He didn't do that, so I decided to do it myself. In the interest of full disclosure, this is a topic that is very close to my own heart... I currently have a 550D (T2i) and will definitely go FF once the new offerings from both companies are released. I take available-light pictures of my 2-year-old son, mostly in the evenings when I get back from work. So I am working with little light and a constantly moving subject.

I'd really like to have better high ISO and AF performance, and I constantly hear that Nikon is better in BOTH of these areas... I think few people would argue that, at least when it comes to AF, Nikon is not afraid to put pro-level AF in their less expensive bodies (e.g. the D700). And there seem to be pros like Rob Galbraith who think that even the best Canon bodies like the 1Div have inferior AF compared to the Nikon D3/D3s.